Water main filter/ Water chemistry ?s

[brianp]

Very small amounts of muratic acid would do the same wouldn't it?

Again we are back to the room problem though..... Right now I'm doing a rough average of 300 gallons when I do a daily waterchange. I don't know if I have the room for a 300 gallon mixing tub......

By the way I appreciate the replies......

If I'm not mistaken, muriatic acid is dilute HCl. And yes, it would work for this purpose. I believe muriatic acid is sold at various home supply stores (like Home Depot) for cleaning concrete and decking.....correct? I would feel more comfortable using something which was produced for human consumption, rather than for a quasi-industrial application...but, technically, muriatic acid would work, IMO.

I understand your space limitation...but let's see if we can explore this approach a bit more. Let's say that you set up a 50 gallon container of your municipal water and determined by testing that 1 cup of vinegar was required to make the appropriate pH adjustment. This means that 6 cups total would be required to adjust the 300 gallons you propose. If you can not prepare all 300 gallons in advance, then it becomes a matter of "metering" the introduction of the vinegar as the water is being added to your tank. Either that, or you add the 300 gallons and then slowly dribble in the vinegar to adjust the pH. You may want to consider if something like this is feasible for you.

 

[MadRussian79]

As far as a good place to read up on DI Millipore is a major mfg of lab water systems. I wouldn't buy from them as their units are super overkill for your application. They have a great set of tutorials for water purification.
http://www.millipore.com/labwater/lw3/resources

You could also use a CO2 injector to lower you pH and plants to absorb the carbonate hardness. This can get a bit tricky trying to find the balance point of the system of CO2, plants, and fish.

If you do a 300 GPD water changes how big is the pond?

On thing you can also do is drip the RO water into the pond and have a drain to remove the over flow. This way your RO unit does your water changes and all you have to do is add bicarbonate to the tank on a regular basis to prevent the pH from crashing. This may be as rare as once per week just mix Seachems Alkaline buffer with water and add it to the tank. If I had more number I could give you a better estimate.

 

[DB junkie]

If I remember correctly the pond is roughly 1K gallons.... I think around 1100 with the filter....... 13 rays (5 adults and 8 juvies), a dozen small catfish, (4) foot long odoe pikes, (2) foot long irwinis, and a Rhaphiodon that's a little over a foot. Definetly a decent bio load.....LOL

I should be able to lower the waterchange quantity/and or frequency next week. I finally got the grow out tank set up for my Juvies.... And have began slowly transferring them. The 2 from earlier this week are doing great, so the rest will be in with them by the end of the week. This should cut the bio load down significantly.

BrianP I agree with you 100% on vinegar over muratic acid.... Was just curious if it was the same principle.

The metering thing would be no different then adding prime..... Maybe a 5 gallon bucket with the proper amount of vinegar diluted with water and dripped via a ballvalve into the incoming tapwater stream.

 

[Mr Pleco]

Seachem neutral regulator? What effect does this have on the water? What is your end result PH?

I really don't have the room to age/premix 300 gallons of water a day......LOL

300 gals a day wow... I have a 100 gallon rubbermaid tank I use but I only change 100 gals every other day....Seachem product with my rock hard water brings me down to 7.3, my tanks are around 7.0...Seachem does make a discus buffer for 6.5...GL, looks like we have some other options posted/